Frankenstein has a thing for coin-op

The amount of detail [Doug] put into his Dr. Frankenstein MAME cabinet is outrageous! Usually we’re more interested in the guts, but in this case the real story is the cabinet itself. Painted to resemble weathered metal, the effect of dripping water is visible on every rivet. There are illuminated portals on either side: one shows the monster, the other shows the bride and the good doctor. Sprinkled throughout the case are analog dials, lamps, and other laboratory bits. [Doug] tops off the design by concealing the power switch inside a book of Frankenstein’s lab notes which is tucked away behind the door beneath the controls. A lovely build for a creepy house.

From the site: “Nobody means to be rude when then ask “where do you find the time?” or they say “you have too much time on your hands!”. I understand they mean “wow, that must have taken a long time”. I do find it strange that people can spend an entire weekend watching television (sports, dramas, reality shows) and nobody asks or says the same thing. It’s almost as if our culture has begun to look down on the concept of putting forth effort.”

I have had the same experience. He makes a very good point; people will spend countless hours doing pointless things, but when someone’s efforts produce something tangible, people ask questions.

@andrew: totally man ( I read that also ), us tech geeks spend a ton of time working on these type of projects and one of the things you hear the most from onlookers is “where do you find the time”. Usually it’s from people with no geeky/tech outlet.

I would have used that control board as a template for where to put the holes and then done a custom board with brass handles that fits the motif better, but there’s no reason why that stuff couldn’t be done later.

That’s a working rig right there and nothing to sneeze at given the detail involved.

As we all love them it’s worth mentioning that the Arduino can be used to build some nice custom HID interface deices, perfect for this. A $3 ARV can also be much more flexible than off the shelf controllers such as the I-pac etc.

I totally agree, but he does kinda save himself with this FTA: “Oh, yeah…I know those of you who are serious about MAME cabinets will beat me up for using the pre-made x-arcade controller…please forgive my current lack of electronics wizardry in this matter.”

@ the first few posters that mention effort vs. astonishment: Yeah, I think that’s why we’re HERE on H-A-D expanding our horizons vs. sitting in front of the TV watching CSI talk about IP addresses in the 328.x.x.x range and not accomplishing a damn thing.

Hat’s off to the guy for great job in creating something unique and functional.

Did he wire the analog meters up to anything?
It would be okay if the showed status of the power supply, but needles flickering as a result of
inputs or cpu load would be so cool!
I am not faulting him for anything he did, after all he did apologize for not using the PABWUTOS
(PIC/Arduino/Bluetooth/wireless/USB/Twitter/Open Source) protocol required for _all_ hackaday submissions!